SAN RAMON, Calif. -- Chevron Corp. CEO John Watson vociferously defended his company's refusal to pay an $18 billion court judgment over pollution in the Amazon.

Even as Ecuadorean plaintiffs announced a new front in their nearly 20-year battle -- a lawsuit filed yesterday in the Superior Court of Justice in Ontario, seeking to tap Chevron's Canadian assets to pay for a 2011 court judgment in Ecuador -- Watson held firm.

"We don't intend to pay criminals that are seeking to defraud your company," he said to shareholders at the company's annual meeting in San Ramon, Calif.

Critics from around the world, notably Ecuador, Angola and Brazil, came to the meeting to address Watson. "You are celebrating your profits," said Ecuadorean resident Luz Cusangua, speaking through a translator. "That has led to suffering where we are."

Chevron announced yesterday that 2011 was its 24th consecutive year of annual dividend increases, with a net income of $26.9 billion for the year.

But Watson responded that state-owned PetroEcuador was to blame for much of the damage, not Chevron or Texaco Petroleum Corp., which Chevron purchased in 2001. "You've been led to believe ... it's Chevron who's responsible for some of those hardships," he said, using a Spanish translator. "Chevron is not responsible. PetroEcuador is responsible."

After the meeting, the Amazon Defense Coalition announced it would file suit to try to collect the money from Chevron's Canadian assets and would likely pursue more suits in other countries.

"We plan to exercise our legal right to collect every penny of the legitimate judgment from Ecuador, even if we have to drag Chevron kicking and screaming into courts around the world," said lead attorney Pablo Fajardo in a statement.

Though the new lawsuit was announced after the meeting, Chevron quickly responded to that, as well. "The Ecuador judgment is a product of bribery, fraud, and it is illegitimate," the company said in a statement. "The company does not believe that the Ecuador judgment is enforceable in any court that observes the rule of law."